SUBJECTUM / Contemporary Hungarian Photography

The Budapest Photo Festival in the cooporation of the Budapest Spring Festival represents:
SUBJECTUM / Contemporary Hungarian Photography

Coloring the program of the Budapest Spring Festival by the art of photograpy the Budapest Photo Festival in the cooperation of the Castle Garden Bazaar represents its highlighted exhibition. Portraits made photography a serious art medium in the 19th century. As it became possible to fix the human presence on photosensitive materials, a new era began in history. Photos of human faces and figures completely changed how people perceive themselves and others. It turned the conventional visual depiction on its head and it made photography a professional vocation.

László Mészáros: Beauty

Our relation to portraiture as models, photographers, art lovers, scientists and historians continuously changed and developed throughout the nearly 200-year-history of photography. Portrait history was marked by both calmer golden ages and chaotic artistic crises from its beginning in 1839 until today, but the importance of human presence in pictures was never questioned. Nowadays, courtesy of electronic devices, billions of portraits and self-portraits are made, which makes it seem ever more important to take a closer look at the human presence in contemporary Hungarian photography. Budapest Photo Festival creates a comprehensive exhibition every year around a topic, showing its relevance to the local photographers. With Szubjektum, we examined the contemporary approaches to portraiture.

Self-portraits, portraits, personality portraits and genres: they search for the possibilities of portraiture through the dilemma of objectivity-subjectivity, personality-impersonality; and they approach the depiction of the individual along personal connections and relations. It can appear both as novelistic reinterpretations or as successors of traditional portrait paintings; but the portraits that are bestowed with symbols placed in their own environment – such as the series about photographers – can also suggest a narrative beyond a given composition. The pictures in the exhibition tell stories of fate, state of mind – also in the model-photographer relation-, milieu, subcultures and last but not least (as with dual portraits) the visual depiction of time. Meanwhile the images based on the physiognomy of the face, or the self-portraits made with unusual techniques, formats and in sometimes unusual environments study the layers of personality. The exhibition is open from 8. April – 31. May. Curators: Rita Somosi art-historian, Klára Szarka photo historian

Exhibitors:
BAKOS Flóra, BALLA András, BALÁZS Zsolt, BENKŐ Imre, BÍRÓ Dávid, BUDA Gábor, BŐDEY János, CHOCHOL Károly, CZIMBAL Gyula, DOBOS Tamás, FAZEKAS István, FUCHS Lehel, GOMBAI Gellért, GULYÁS Miklós, GYULAI Szilvia, GÁTI György, GÖTZ Krisztina, HAMARITS Zsolt, HEGEDŰS 2 László, HERENDI PÉTER, HORVATH M. Judit, HORVÁTH Péter, HUPJÁN Attila, KAULICS Viola, KISS Emese., KOKAVECZ Boglárka, KOLOZSI Bea, BILAK Krisztina, LÁZÁR Alexandra Emese, LONDON Katalin, LUZSICZA Fanni, MARÁCZI Krisztián, MÉSZÁROS László, MÓRICZ-SABJÁN Simon, NEMCSIK Dávid, PATAKY Zsolt, PILLÓ Ákos, PÁLHÁZI Petra, RÉDLING Hanna, S.FARAGÓ Gyöngyi, SCHILD Tamás, SIÓRÉTI Gábor, SOMOGYVÁRI Kata, SZATMARI Gergely, URBÁN Ádám, VACHTER János, VARGA Tamás, WALTON Eszter

The Castle Garden Bazaar
1013 Budapest, Ybl Miklós tér 6.
Opening hours: Tuesday-Sunday 12.00-18.00